Reviewing Local Authority Renewable Energy Strategies’ contribution to Ireland’s 2030 Renewable Electricity Targets

This is a working paper commissioned by the Climate Change Advisory Council of Ireland. The Climate Action Plan 2023 clearly defines targets for the installed capacity of renewable electricity by 2030. With a central focus on onshore wind, the purpose of this working paper is to determine how current local authority development plans (and within this the renewable energy strategies) take these targets into account. This paper highlights a low level of strategic renewable energy planning to date and a lack of appropriate technical grounding in some local authorities' targets. This review thus shows that asking each local authority to determine the renewable potentials in their area and how it will contribute to the national objectives has not worked. Instead, what is needed is a nationally coordinated process to map the resource potential across the country, and new deliberative forums with local, regional and national actors to decide how the targets will be set and monitored.